I imagine it would be about the same if we in the US tried to label a map of Europe.

...and Europe isn't even a country. How about labelling a map of the UK or any other country outside the US? :-)

I could probably correctly place about 10 states in the US (maybe not even that), mostly through either having been there or because the state is well-known through some sort of media (movie, TV show, book, etc). I can't remember ever being taught about US states in school, which makes sense. Geographically there's no reason to know more about US states than the states or counties of any other country.

...and Europe isn't even a country. How about labelling a map of the UK or any other country outside the US? :-)

I could probably correctly place about 10 states in the US (maybe not even that), mostly through either having been there or because the state is well-known through some sort of media (movie, TV show, book, etc). I can't remember ever being taught about US states in school, which makes sense. Geographically there's no reason to know more about US states than the states or counties of any other country.

That's what I find funny about it. Why would anyone outside the US know where the states are on a map? Like I said, people here can't even do it.

I said Europe and not the UK, as the number of states is closer to the number of countries in Europe as opposed to the 4 in the UK.

The big challenge would be to name the countries in Africa. Most of those have changed since I was in high school. I'm not sure Africa was here when I was in high school. After all, that was a long time ago.

When I was preparing to move from the east coast to Idaho, most people I talked to thought Idaho was in the midwest. Even after I got here, some of my friends back east asked me how I liked the midwest.

I always answered, it looked nice enough as I drove through it.

Don't even get me started on how many Idahoans don't know where various states and European countries are.

No bloody wonder nobody can place them all. Way too many states to begin with.

That is our history's fault. We didn't just show up and acquire all this land. The east coast states are all weird looking because the US only went as far west as the Appalachian mountains at first. As we spread west the boundaries were along rivers and mountain ranges and stuff. Once the country was past the Mississippi river, they started to become subdivided as squares.

California isn't square because it was a disconnected state. It precedes the square state era. There was gold there so we had to have it. We acquired it from Mexico.

Texas isn't square because it was part of Mexico and broke off. It was its own independent territory for a while. I don't remember exactly Texas's whole story.

No bloody wonder nobody can place them all. Way too many states to begin with. So many in fact, that you've even managed to confuse yourselves in the process.

Look at Oz. A landmass only slightly smaller than mainland USA (not including Alaska), yet we only have 6 states and 2 territories. Even our imbeciles can fill out one of our maps. :-)

But they have 10x Australia's population so if they followed our proportions they'd have 80 states!

I would have been pretty useless with that (maybe improved a bit after this thread) but probably better than most Americans would be at identifying Australian states and territories. I would be hopeless with Britain - all I know is England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales :)

That is our history's fault. We didn't just show up and acquire all this land. The east coast states are all weird looking because the US only went as far west as the Appalachian mountains at first. As we spread west the boundaries were along rivers and mountain ranges and stuff. Once the country was past the Mississippi river, they started to become subdivided as squares.

California isn't square because it was a disconnected state. It precedes the square state era. There was gold there so we had to have it. We acquired it from Mexico.

Texas isn't square because it was part of Mexico and broke off. It was its own independent territory for a while. I don't remember exactly Texas's whole story.

Back in the day, they surveyed land using the metes and bounds method. Most real estate in the original 13 US colonies and in several of the other early states was surveyed with the Metes and Bounds surveying system.

Sometime in the 1800's, as the land grew flatter, somewhere in Ohio, they started using Townships and Ranges that extended outward in 1 mile increments from the main Baselines and Meridians. This was referred to as the Recorded Plat Survey System. In the urban areas this system further extended itself down to the Lot and Block Survey System, which further extends down to individual tracts and parcels. California is interesting because the individual Spanish Rancho lines were left in tact and not described by using townships and ranges and a baseline/meridian.

Idaho has an interesting history as far as its name goes. It was actually made up by a politician. My uncle told me this, but here is a webpage that will tell you the same.